The Apartment

Synopsis

An insurance worker lends out his apartment to company executives for their extramarital affairs in the hopes of a promotion, but things become complicated when one of the mistresses turns out to be a coworker he has eyes for.

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We learn of these entanglements before Fran and Bud do, casting a pall of dramatic irony over the film that’s redolent of Wilder’s noir-driven work. Yet the tone of The Apartment differs from both those darkly moral movies and the filmmaker’s farces, finding a middle ground of somber tragedy that undercuts the awkward comedy of manners between the characters.

Not only is it the most Jewish Christmas movie Hollywood ever made, it’s the baseline for all NYC-based romcoms since–all romcoms worth their salt, really. As clever as it is melancholy, New York’s grabby, glamorous melting pot presides as a central character, and its lonelyhearts discover each other via a Manhattan scavenger hunt of great flourishes and rueful afterthoughts. Neither Jack Lemmon nor Shirley Maclaine were ever so sweethearted again, and that’s saying a mouthful.

The romance is so affecting (to say nothing of the dialogue, which pops as only Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s writing can) that it’s easy to overlook what a superior piece of filmmaking THE APARTMENT is. Wilder remains underrated as a visual artist; and here, working in sparkling black-and-white ’Scope, he creates some remarkable effects, such as the unforgettable loneliness of the apartment itself and the modernist nightmare of the insurance company office.